Camping on the Beach

Over the weekend we drove out to Assateague Island to get our camp on. It turned out to be a very windy, overcast and damp weekend for the most part, but we still had a great time hanging out with some family.

We arrived to excellent weather and just before sunset, by the time our tent was up and a few other odds and ends taken care of, it looked something like this…

Friday night was relatively calm, not too cold and only moderately damp. We had a nice bonfire going sitting around just talking and listening to the tide on the ocean. It was very relaxing and the perfect way to end a work week. Saturday morning was an entirely different story, for example…

There is an entire ocean just a few feet away back there, I swear… and for those worried about me using a camera in such conditions, fear not, it’s weather sealed!

So on Saturday everyone was up early for a big breakfast and then Amanda and I went off in search of lighthouses and horses. We found both!

We came upon the lighthouse first, which was pretty cool. They even let us go up to the top, though visibility was quite poor. Still very cool though!

After the lighthouse we came across a rather large clearing where we could see a number of horses just grazing and minding their own business. It was a pretty cool sight even if the weather was less than ideal.

We also stumbled on some other wildlife…

He seemed to be hunting. I moved parallel to him for probably 20-30 yards and every four or five steps he’d thrust his head into the water, I believe hoping to come back with something in his mouth. That or he was just acting crazy cause he knew he was being watched.

At any rate, our excursion took several hours so once we got back to camp with everyone, it was about dinner time, which meant it was time to make tacos.

Yes, that’s right, to celebrate Cinco de Mayo I made tacos for everyone in 30MPH winds whilst camping. Let me tell you, cooking tacos while camping would be interesting enough, but doing it for 12 people and in high winds is something else! It was an interesting culinary experiment and it turned out fairly well. They weren’t perfect, but they were good enough for camping and everyone seemed to enjoy them, so mission accomplished. After tacos it was a fairly low key evening around the campfire again. I think everyone was exhausted.

Sunday morning everyone woke up relatively un-refreshed (that wind all night was noisy!) and ready to eat some breakfast and then start tearing down camp to head back to reality. Fortunately, it was beautiful weather Sunday morning and I was able to get a group shot before everyone left…

The only downside, as you might be able to tell, is that by 8:30 AM it was so incredibly bright from the lack of clouds or mist that everyone is squinting pretty hardcore. Such is life, though, we had a great weekend and can’t wait to get out again!

b

Yardsaling and Urban Gardening

Another weekend is about to be behind us and what a fun, productive weekend it was. Ben and I have been pretty busy over here in Catonsville prepping for the wedding and for an eventful eventual big move out west. To the Midwest, that is. Yes if you are reading it here for the first time, it is true, Ben and I will be relocating sometime after the wedding to his beloved sweet home Chicago. We don’t have all the wrinkles ironed out yet but once the plan is freshly pressed we will be sure to let you know.

So with those gears turning Ben and I have been Bob Vila-ing it up. Thanks to some wonderful family and Ben being a pleasantly surprising handy man we have been tackling our to do list in order to get the house ready for sale…or possibly even for rent. I am a strong believer in the wonderful power cleansing can offer your mind body and spirit. So without sounding all crunchy on you, I frequently enjoy organizing, cleaning and purging. This weekend provided a wonderful opportunity for me to flex my purging muscle and also the added bonus of fattening up my wallet a bit more. Academy Heights, the neighborhood Ben and I live in, organizes a twice-yearly Community Yard Sale. So once in April and once in September the residents of Academy Heights get to drag their unwanted junk to their front yards and peddle to ‘salers. I must say from my standpoint this is a great opportunity for someone who probably would not on any other occasion decide to have a yard sale. I mean for one I don’t have to worry about advertising, the community organization already does that for me and since this is a local event that has taken place for years, people in the area are familiar with the event. And the additional plus to this community event is I am guaranteed to not be the only person outside with my unwanted crap on display. Having multiple neighbors participate in my opinion really draws out the crowd. So about a week or so ago I began the hunt for unwanted and no longer needed household possessions that both Ben and I were willing to part with and more so that both Ben and I could not foresee moving with us to Chicago. After a four-hour sale, Ben and I are a few hundred dollars richer and our attic and closets feel a lot lighter. Woohoo!

After the Yard Sale was over we dropped off a few remaining items to the local Goodwill then made a Saturday afternoon Home Depot stop. If you didn’t know already I am a Garden lover. Specifically I fancy myself a Vegetable Gardener. I was raised by my father, a wonderful man, who for lack of a better term was a “frustrated farmer.” My dad and step mom live out in the country but are still within the confines of a community. No 10-acre farm for them, probably a good thing in actuality but still enough land to get their hands dirty. So growing up with an abundant vegetable garden, a variety of fruit trees, bee hives and even chickens I have developed my green thumb thanks to the two of them.

Since owning my house I have worked in the soil each year with my beginners attempts of a vegetable garden. Each year I fully enjoyed myself and learned most of all from trial and error. Well this year I had already buried my garden away with the acknowledgment that we will soon be putting the house up for sale and I would have to allow my small brick row home backyard the opportunity to grow grass in the dirt grave of gardens past. I must admit I was growing sad by the day and decided “I just can’t not do what I love!“ After talking it over with Ben we both realized a patio garden would be a lovely alternative this year and probably a great opportunity to learn different gardening techniques. Especially if we decide to experience city life once we find ourselves in Chicago.

So yeah, back to that Home Depot stop. We picked up three tomato varieties, four pepper varieties, an assortment of our favorite herbs as well as cucumbers and string beans. We placed some sizable containers as well as gardening soil in our bright orange cart and went straight home to start our Urban Garden. I am beyond thrilled and cannot wait to see the progress.

A rainy Sunday is amongst us today and we are lounging like the best of them, straightening up here and there and doing our typical weekend things. Tonight we will close out the weekend with a wonderful family dinner with some beloved cousins. Enjoy your Sunday Funday and we wish you a wonderful week ahead.

a

Five Month Ocean City Escape

So last weekend we hit the five month mark for the wedding so to celebrate -and escape reality for a couple days- we made a little dash to Ocean City, MD. Amanda of course, as a native Marylander, grew up going to Ocean City. I, as a midwesterner, was uninitiated.

Being that it was the off season we knew it was a gamble as far as weather and what would or wouldn’t be open during our visit but those factors were trumped by the ultimate reward: off season = happier ben and amanda.

The breakdown for the equation goes something like this:

Off season = less people

Q.E.D.

Fairly straight forward (and even obvious for anyone that knows either of us really well). There was a minor hiccup though, in that we did pick the same weekend of some big cheerleading competition as well as the rubber stamp and scrapbooking convention (both seemed to be centered, coincidentally, in the hotel where our condo was located) but it was still a very not crowded and relaxing weekend, complete with Skee Ball on the boardwalk, have a watch…

So Amanda got to relive many fond memories growing up and I got to relive fond memories playing skee ball in another location, oh, and check out a bunch of new stuff I’d never seen before. It was my first time ever on a boardwalk (at least as far as I can recall). Ocean City is an…interesting place. It’s not without its charms by any means and I certainly can’t complain having an ocean front condo for the weekend that allowed me to see and hear the ocean once night had fallen without even moving from my seat/bed/wherever. But I do have to ask, what on earth is the deal with having 47 different locations for the same establishment on a 5 mile stretch of road? Sunsations, I’m looking squarely at you as the most egregious offender here. There can’t possibly be a valid reason to have a presence on every single block down Coastal Highway. Other establishments such as Dumser’s (awesome Ice Cream and Shakes, by the way!) have a similar tendency but they aren’t as over the top as Sunsations. That being said, we did make a stop into one of the 147 different Sunsations (don’t ask me which one, I have no clue) and Amanda found a spiffy new hat, so all was not lost.

Although it was a somewhat chilly weekend, especially with the wind coming off the ocean, it was still very nice and we had ample time and good weather for hanging out on the boardwalk and on the beach. We even saw a couple incredibly brave (or incredibly naive) kids out there in bathing suits. We decided to stick to the sand though. It was a lot less cold that way and plus, I didn’t have to get my camera all wet and salty!

It was a great trip and I think we each got some much needed r&r (not that we don’t want more, of course). In just five short months all of the planning will come to fruition and then we’ll be whisked away to another piece of ocean front property for our honeymoon and we can’t wait!

b

Save The Date

My dad text me today after receiving some excitement in the mail box this afternoon. It’s finally starting to feel official and I like it!

Ben excitedly stamping

Shout out to our amazing friend Justin for all his hard work on our Save The Date design!

a

Welcome

Hello, Hi, Hey! Welcome to our site. We hope you enjoy your visit and keep up on the life happenings of Ben and Amanda but more-so at the moment, get all the wedding information you may need.

Today is the official 6 month wedding countdown mark. What does that mean for you? We don’t know for sure but for us we know if we were anticipating Christmas morning like a child would, 6 months would seem forever far away. Alas we are not children (though we may act it at times) waiting for Christmas. We are, however, planning a wedding and according to every bridal magazine Amanda reads, at this point in the game we have “stuff” we should have accomplished.

Our wedding forces have come together and started to get some information together for our guests. Take a gander at the Wedding tab and see if any of that information is useful to you. For our out-of-towners who can make it to the wedding we hope you are excited for your trip to the Eastern Shore State because we are extremely excited to see you. If you are anything like Amanda, the planning preparations have already begun. We have gathered a little information that may be useful in your process.

We anticipate in the upcoming weeks you all should be receiving your Save the Dates in the mail. With that anticipation we are assuming we will begin to have some website visitors. Sooooo if our assumptions are correct and you are reading this then our work has not been useless! Woohoo!

Please feel free to visit as often as you like, you can read up on some maybe sporadic or maybe daily blog posts, admire Ben’s amazing photography skills in photos we will post and of course the real reason you are visiting, to keep up to date on any and all wedding updates.

We will be providing more concrete information once the official wedding invitations are mailed out and also once September get’s closer. In the mean time if you have any questions or need some assistance in planning your Maryland visit or for you locals planning your trip up 97 please contact either of us.

We can’t wait to see everyone!

b & a